Lobby in Support of a No-Cuts Budget

Earlier tonight a lobby was held outside of Leicester City Council’s annual budget setting meeting. The fifty-strong protest was supported by various trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners from across the city.

With the Labour Party dominating Leicester’s politics, the protestors were asking Labour councillors to oppose City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby’s plans to carry through the Tories cuts agenda.

Last year, former Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) councillors Wayne Naylor and Barbara Potter, proposed a legal ‘no cuts’ motion, asking that the Labour Council stand opposed to austerity by building a public campaign against Tory attacks on the long-term viability of the City Council itself.

This motion was rejected. But since the election of Jeremy Corbyn, the openly anti-austerity leader of the Labour Party, protestors were hopeful that this will give encouragement to Labour councillors to refuse to agree to yet another cuts budget.

Last month members of the Leicester branch of TUSC wrote to all the city’s Labour councillors to ask if they would consider fighting the cuts by refusing to agree to a cuts budget. Not a single response has been received to date.

Nevertheless campaigners remain hopeful that city councillors may still be encouraged to change their mind. Wayne Naylor explained:

“Pressure is building within the trade union movement for Labour Council’s to stop crying crocodile tears, so they can look to the future and begin to fight the brutal cuts being made to public services. Other than the election of Jeremy Corbyn, another of the reasons why I am particularly hopeful that our councillors will have a change of heart is because the national local government committee of Unite the Union have recently voted in support of a motion calling on councillors to stand together across the country in refusing to make further cuts. This was followed by another successful motion passed by the local government service group of Unison, which made it clear that Labour councillors do not need to set budgets that cut funding for local services.”

Such hope was sadly misplaced, as predictably, within 35 minutes of the budget setting meeting commencing the full Council had unaminously voted to support yet another devastating cuts budget.

Nevertheless with the Labour Council having been forced into making a recent U-turn on fire service cuts, as a result of massive public pressure, anti-austerity campaigners will now be renewing their committment to holding our city politicans accountable and fighting for the Government funds that Leicester so desperately needs.